Math circles originated in Hungary more than a century ago. They soon spread over Eastern Europe and Asia, and since then have produced many of the great scientists from those parts of the world, in mathematics and in other disciplines. The math circles also led eventually to the start of many national and international math contests, including the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) in 1959 in Romania. It is widely believed that it is the presence of these circles that has enabled the youth of countries such as Russia, Bulgaria and Romania on average to outperform the United States at the IMO. Given the success of math circles in Russia and Eastern Europe, it is surprising that it has taken so long for the United States to develop similar programs.

The Berkeley Math Circle was founded in 1998 to begin to correct this situation. Since then groups have begun in Palo Alto and San Jose. The San Francisco Bay Area was a natural choice for the site of math circles, both because of the large number of talented high school students in the area, and because of the proximity of world-class institutions such as MSRI from which experienced lecturers could be drawn.

Although it has existed for only a few years, the Berkeley Math Circle and the competition it organizes, the Bay Area Mathematical Olympiad, have become known to thousands of people in the San Francisco Bay Area and across the country, both through word-of-mouth and in the media. BMC frequently receives request from schools and universities across the U.S. for help in setting up their own circles. The heart of the Circle is the Weekly Math Circle lectures. Each week (typically a Sunday) during the academic year middle and high school students from San Francisco Bay would gather for two hours in the afternoon on a University campus (likely USF) for a lecture on a specific mathematical topic. University professors and teachers, well known locally, nationally and even internationally for their expositional and problem solving skills, present the lectures. Frequently, the lectures take the form of an interactive discussion between the instructor and students, and the students volunteer to explain solutions and problems to the rest of the group. The style, organization, level and topic of the lectures varies from meeting to meeting. Some lectures are aimed at problem-solving for mathematical competitions. Other lectures introduce the students to exciting advanced math topics whose level range from elementary high school to advanced undergraduate. Yet, a third type of lecture deal with connections between mathematics and other sciences such as physics, biology, computer science, and economics.